by John Scalzi
"Yes," Boutin said.
"You'll kill me," Jared said.
"Well, yes," Boutin said. "But I did just make a recording of your consciousness, because I need to fine-tune my own transfer. It's everything you are as of five minutes ago. So you'll only be mostly dead."
"You son of a bitch," Jared said.
"And when I've uploaded my consciousness into your body, I'll serve as the carrier for the virus. It won't affect me, of course. But everyone else will get its full strength. Then I'll have your squad mates shot, and then Zoe and I will head back to Colonial Union space in that capture pod you've so thoughtfully provided. I'll tell them that Charles Boutin is dead, and the Obin will lie low until the BrainPal virus strikes. Then they'll move in and force the Colonial Union to surrender. And just like that, you and I will have saved humanity."
"Don't put this on me," Jared said. "I have nothing to do with this."
"Don't you?" Boutin said, amused. "Listen, Dirac. The Colonial Union is not going to see me as the instrument of its demise. I'll already be dead. They're going to see you, and you alone. Oh, you'll be a part of this, my friend. You don't have a choice."
FOURTEEN
"The more I think about this plan the less I like it," Harvey said to Sagan. They and Seaborg crouched at the line of the forest edging the science station.
"Try not to think so much," Sagan said. "That should be easy for you, Harvey," Seaborg said. He was trying to lighten the mood and doing a poor job of it.
Sagan glanced down at Seaborg's leg. "Are you going to be able to do this?" she asked. "Your limp's gotten worse."
"I'll be fine," Seaborg said. "I'm not going to sit here like a turd while you two are completing the mission."
"I'm not saying that," Sagan said. "I'm saying that you and Harvey could switch roles."
"I'm fine," Seaborg repeated. "And anyway, Harvey would kill me if I took his gig."
"Goddamn right," Harvey said. "This shit is what I'm good at."
"My leg hurts, but I can walk on it and run on it," Seaborg said. "I'll be fine. But let's not just sit here and talk about this anymore. My leg's going to tighten up."
Sagan nodded and turned her gaze back to the science station, which was a rather modest collection of buildings. On the north end of the compound were the Obin barracks, which were surprisingly compact; the Obin either did not want or need anything approaching privacy. Like humans the Obin collected together at mealtimes; many of them would be in the mess hall adjacent to the barracks. Harvey's job was to create a distraction there and draw attention to himself, leading the Obin in other parts of the station toward him.
On the south end of the compound was the energy generator/regulator, housed in a large, shed-like building. The Obin used what were essentially huge batteries, which were constantly charged by windmills placed at a distance from the station. Seaborg's job was to cut the power, somehow. He'd have to work with what he found there to make it happen.
Between the two was the science station proper. After the power dropped, Sagan would enter, find Boutin and extract him, pounding him unconscious if need be to get him to the capture pod. If she came across Dirac, she would need to make a quick determination whether he was useful or if he had gone traitor like his progenitor. If it was the latter, she would have to kill him, clean and quick.
Sagan suspected she was going to have to kill Dirac no matter what; she didn't really think she would have enough time to decide whether he was trustworthy or not, and she didn't have her BrainPal upgrade to read his thoughts on the matter. Sagan allowed herself a moment of mirthless amusement at the fact that her mind-reading ability, so secret and classified, was also completely useless to her when she really needed it. Sagan didn't want to have to kill Dirac, but she didn't see that she had a whole lot of options in the matter. Maybe he's already dead, Sagan thought. That would save me the trouble.
Sagan shook the thought out of her head. She didn't like what that particular line of thought was saying about her. She would worry about Dirac when and if Dirac showed up. In the meantime, the three of them had other things to worry about. In the end, what really mattered was getting Boutin to that capture pod.
We do have one advantage, Sagan thought. None of us really expects we're going to survive. That gives us options.
"Are we ready?" Sagan asked.
"We're ready," Seaborg said.
"Fuck, yes," Harvey said.
"Let's do it then," Sagan said. "Harvey, you're on."
Jared woke from a brief nap to find Zoe staring up at him. He smiled. "Hello, Zoe," he said.
"Hello," Zoe said, and frowned. "I forgot your name," she said.
"I'm Jared," he said.
"Oh, yeah," Zoe said. "Hello, Mr. Jared."
"Hello, sweetie," Jared said, and once again he found it hard to keep his voice even. He glanced down at the stuffed animal Zoe carried. "Is that Celeste the elephant?" he asked.
Zoe nodded, and held it up for him to see. "Uh-huh," she said. "I used to have a Babar, but I lost it. Do you know Babar?"
"I do," Jared said. "I remember seeing your Babar too."
"I miss my Babar," Zoe said in a little voice, but then perked up. "But then Daddy got me Celeste, after he came back."
"How long was he away?" Jared asked.
Zoe shrugged. "A long time," she said. "He said he had things he had to do first. But he said he sent the Obin to protect me and watch out for me."
"And did they?" Jared asked.
"I guess so," she said. She shrugged and said in a low voice, "I don't like the Obin. They're boring."
"I can see that," Jared said. "I'm sorry you and your dad were kept apart for so long, Zoe. I know he loves you very much."
"I know," Zoe said. "I love him too. I love Daddy and Mommy and all the grandparents I never met and my friends from Covell too. I miss them. Do you think they miss me?"
"I'm sure they do," Jared said, and willfully avoided thinking about what happened to her friends. He looked back at Zoe and saw her being pouty. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" he asked.
"Daddy says that I have to go back to Phoenix with you," Zoe said. "He says that you're going to stay with me so he can finish up some work here."
"Your daddy and I talked about that," Jared said, carefully. "Do you not want to go back?"
"I want to go back with Daddy," she said, plaintively. "I don't want him to stay."
"He won't be gone very long," Jared said. "It's just the ship that we brought here to take you home is really small, and there's only going to be room in it for you and me."
"You could stay," Zoe said.
Jared laughed. "I wish I could, honey. But we'll have fun while we wait for your daddy, I promise. Is there anything you'd like to do when we get to Phoenix Station?"
"I want to buy some candy," Zoe said. "They don't have any here. Daddy says the Obin don't make any. He tried to make me some once, though."
"How was it?" Jared asked.
"It was really bad," Zoe said. "I want jawbreakers and butterscotch and lollipops and jellybeans. I like the black ones."
"I remember that," Jared said. "The first time I saw you, you were earing black jellybeans."
"When was that?" Zoe asked.
"It was a long time ago, sweetie," Jared said. "But I remember it like it was yesterday. And when we go back, you can have any candy you want."
"But not too much," Zoe said. "Because then my stomach will hurt."
"Exactly right," Jared said. "And we really couldn't have that. A stomachache just wouldn't do."
Zoe smiled up at Jared and broke his heart. "You're silly, Mr. Jared," she said.
"Well," Jared said, smiling back. "I try."
"Okay, I'm going to go," Zoe said. "Daddy's taking a nap. He doesn't know I'm here. I'm going to go wake him up because I'm hungry."
"You go do that, Zoe," Jared said. "Thank you for visiting, Zoe. I'm really glad you came by."
"Okay," Zoe said, turned around, and waved
back to him as she went. "Bye, Mr. Jared! See you later."
"See you later," Jared said, knowing he wouldn't.
"Love you!" Zoe said, in that casual way that kids do.
"Love you too," Jared whispered, as a parent. He waited until he heard a door close down the adjoining hall before he let himself release the ragged, tearing breath he had been holding in.
Jared looked at the lab, his eyes flitting over the console Boutin had brought in to manage the consciousness transfer, and lingering on the second creche Boutin had brought in, the one in which he would place himself before sending over his consciousness to Jared's body, wiping out Jared's existence as if he were simply a placeholder, something put there to mark time until the body's true owner could take possession.
But then, Jared thought, wasn't that actually the case? It was Boutin who was intended to be in this body. That was why it was created. Jared was allowed to exist only because Boutin's consciousness refused at first to take up residence. It had to be coaxed in to share the mindspace Jared had created as caretaker. And now, irony of ironies, Boruin wanted it all, wanted to push Jared aside entirely. Damn it, Jared thought crazily. I just got this brain set up the way I like it! He laughed, and the laugh sounded shaky and weird to his ears. He tried to calm himself, bringing himself into a more rational state breath by breath.
Jared heard Boutin in his head, describing the wrongs of the Colonial Union, and heard the voice of Cainen, whom he trusted more to be honest about these things, echoing the sentiments. He looked into his own past as a member of the Special Forces, and the things they had done in the name of making the universe "safe for humanity." The Colonial Union did straddle every line of communication, directed every course of action, kept every aspect of humanity under tight control, and fought nearly every other race they knew of with persistent ferocity.
If the universe was as hostile as the Colonial Union said, perhaps this level of control was justified, for the overarching racial imperative of holding ground and making a place for humans in the universe. But if it wasn't—if what was fueling the Colonial Union's constant wars was not competition from the outside but paranoia and xenophobia from the inside—then Jared knew that he and everyone he'd known inside the Special Forces and out of it could have, in one way or another, led to the slow death of humanity that Boutin assured him was out there. He would have chosen to refuse to fight.
But, Jared thought, Boutin isn't reliable. Boutin labeled the Colonial Union as evil, but Boutin also chose to do evil things. He caused three separate races—two with long-standing issues—to come together to attack the Colonial Union, exposing billions of humans and billions of other intelligent creatures to the threat of war. He had experimented upon and killed Special Forces soldiers. He was planning to kill every single member of Special Forces and every other CDF soldier with his BrainPal virus, something akin to a genocide, considering the numbers and the unique makeup of the Colonial Defense Forces. And in killing the Colonial Defense Forces, Boutin would leave the colonies and Earth defenseless against any race who chose to claim one of the colonies as its own. The Obin couldn't stop the land rush from these other races—and probably wouldn't even if they could. The reward for the Obin was not land but consciousness.
The unprotected colonists would be doomed, Jared realized. Their colonies would be destroyed and there would be nowhere for them to go. It wasn't in the nature of the races in this part of the galaxy to share their worlds. Earth with its billions might survive; it would be hard to displace billions of humans without a fight. The more sparsely populated and less ecologically burdened colony planets would be far more attractive. But if someone decided to attack Earth, and the Earth had indeed been held back by the Colonial Union for its own purposes, it wouldn't be able to fully defend itself. It would survive, but the damage would be immense.
Doesn't Boutin see this? Jared asked himself. Perhaps he did, but chose to believe that it wouldn't happen that way. But maybe he simply never considered the consequences of his actions. When the Obin contacted him, perhaps all Boutin saw was a people so desperate for the thing he could give them that they would do anything to get it. Maybe Boutin asked for the moon and didn't give a thought to what he would do with the moon once he had it. Maybe Boutin didn't really think the Obin would really, truly give him the war he asked for.
Interlaced within all of this, Jared felt a sick-making worry for Zoe: What would happen to her if Boutin failed or was killed; what would happen to her if he succeeded? Jared felt guilty for worrying about what would happen to one small child when billions of lives would be altered or ended, but he couldn't help himself. As much as anything, he was looking for a way where Zoe lived through all of it.
Jared felt overwhelmed by the choices he needed to make, and underwhelmed by the information he had to make them with, and utterly bereft at how little he would be able to do about any of it. He felt like he was probably the last person in the world who should be wrestling with all of this. But there was nothing to be done about it now. He closed his eyes and considered his options.
An hour later Jared opened his eyes as Boutin came through the door, trailed by an Obin. "You're awake," Boutin said.
"I am," Jared said.
"It's time for me to make the transfer," Boutin said. "I've programmed in the process and run the simulations; it looks like it's going to run perfectly. There's no point in putting it off anymore."
"Far be it from me to stop you from killing me," Jared said, casually.
Boutin paused; Jared saw that coming right out and mentioning his incipient murder disturbed Boutin. Good, Jared thought.
"About that," Boutin said. "Before we do the transfer, I can run a directive that will put you to sleep, if you want. You wouldn't feel a thing. I'm offering that to you. If you want."
"You don't seem to want it," Jared said.
"It makes the transfer more difficult, from what I can see from the simulations," Boutin said. "The transfer will take more securely if you're conscious as well."
"Well then, by all means I'll stay awake," Jared said. "I wouldn't want to make this more difficult for you."
"Listen, Dirac," Boutin said. "This isn't something personal. You have to understand that you offer a way to make this all happen quickly and cleanly, with the least amount of bloodshed on all sides. I'm sorry you have to die, but the alternative is far more death."
"Murdering every Colonial Defense Forces soldier with your virus doesn't strike me as the least amount of bloodshed," Jared said.
Boutin turned and told the Obin to start the preparations; the Obin went to the console and went to work.
"Tell me," Jared said. "After you've killed all the Colonial Defense Forces, who is going to protect the human colonies? They won't have defenders anymore. You'll have killed them all."
"The Obin will protect them in the short run," Boutin said. "Until we can create a new defense force."
"Are you sure about that?" Jared said. "Once you give them consciousness, why would they need to do anything for you anymore? Or do you plan to withhold consciousness until after they give you your next demand?"
Boutin gave a quick glance back at the Obin in the room, and then faced Jared. "I'm not withholding anything," he said. "They'll do it because they've agreed to it."
"Are you willing to bet the life of Zoe on it?" Jared asked. "Because that's what you're doing."
"Don't lecture me on my daughter," Boutin spat at Jared, and turned away. Jared gave a sad shudder, thinking of the choices he was making.
The Obin nodded over at Boutin; it was time. Boutin looked over to Jared one more time. "Anything else you want to say before we get started?" he asked Jared.
"I think I'll save it for later," Jared said.
Boutin opened his mouth to ask what that meant, but before he could, a noise erupted from outside the station. It sounded like a very large gun going off very rapidly.
Harvey lived for this sort of shit.
His chie
f worry as they approached the science station was that Lieutenant Sagan would do one of her patented thoughtful, methodical approaches; something sneaky that would require him to tiptoe around like a goddamn spy or something. He hated that crap. Harvey knew what he was and what he was best at: He was a noisy son of a bitch and he was good at making things fall down and go boom. In his few introspective moments, Harvey wondered if his progie, the guy he was mostly made from, hadn't been something really antisocial, like a pyromaniac or a professional wrestler, or maybe had done time for assault. Whoever or whatever he was, Harvey would have been happy to give him a nice big smack on the lips. Harvey was absolutely at peace with his inner nature, in the sort of way that Zen Buddhist monks could only dream about. And so when Sagan told him his job was to draw attention to himself so she and Seaborg could do their jobs, Harvey did a little dance on the inside. He could definitely draw attention to himself.
The question was how.
Harvey was not especially introspective, but this didn't mean he was stupid. He was moral, within his lights; he understood the value of subtlety even if he wasn't much for it himself, and one of the reasons he could get away with being loud and obnoxious was that he was a fair stick at strategy and logistics. Give him a job and he'd do it, usually in the most entropy-producing way possible, yes, but also in a way that achieved exactly the aim it was supposed to. One of Harvey's guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down. When asked about it, Harvey called it his Occam's razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone's ass was usually the correct one.
It was this philosophy that had Harvey taking the hovercraft Sagan had stolen, mounting it, and, after a few moments to glean the fundamentals of navigating it, rocketing on it toward the door of the Obin mess hall. As Harvey approached, the door to the mess hall opened inward; some Obin heading to duty after dinner. Harvey grinned a mad grin, gunned the hovercraft, and then braked it just enough (he hoped) to jam that fucking alien right back into the room.
